


Schrodinger's Inn

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambivalence, Game: Resident Evil 7, Paranoia, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23467618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Mia finds Jack coming back from his second search of the shipwreck sooner than anticipated.Alone.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Schrodinger's Inn

A third flash of lightning for the night coincided with a thump on the door of the trailer, and Mia seized with a willowy gasp, rumpling the note with a flash-formed fist and stuffing it behind her back as her eyes locked unblinkingly to one spot.

Her vision of the trailer door held the exposure of the lighting on it - burned blue into her eyes as the adrenaline held, likewise, a consistent burn in her veins. She didn't breathe.

Even Mr. Baker's warm-rough call of _"Miss Winters?"_ didn't relax her enough that it took her less than three seconds to respond. Somewhere through the tensing, she first registered that he was talking to her. Then that she should say something back. Then what it was that he wanted, and how to respond to it.

Never mind how simple it was.

When she called _"yes?"_ back, it was faintly stammered - and far too pinched, narrow in tone.

"May I come in?"

Absurdly, her next thought could be best transcribed as _fuck_. She hadn't a clue why.

A longer period of processing, this time, with an additional moment of decision: repeat the previous process.

She swallowed, and her next _"yes?"_ still came out wrong.

When Mr. Baker opened the door, it was simultaneously jarring and relieving. Cold poured into the trailer after him, while at the same time some of the tension - some - was sucked on out into the night and hammered out into the pouring rain with the cracking of a vacuum seal. The old man smiled - looking "up", despite his height, from where he had his head low, ducking under rain that wasn't coming down on him anymore. She saw flecks of water on his glasses catch little shards of that blue nighttime light. "Hope I wasn't disturbing nothing," he said. "You gettin' your rest and all..."

She felt like she should smile back. Not strongly enough to care, however, when she simply blinked dumbly - not strongly enough to register the lack of etiquette when she fluted on out, " -- What do you need?"

A dusty conversational chuckle. Mr. Baker neither stood still nor took a seat. He laced his hands behind his back - paced a couple slow steps away from the door. Paused. Repeated the opposite way. "Nothin'." Shook his head. "Sure hope no one else does, either."

A strange statement.

Mia leaned fully with the tilting of her head.

"Feel mighty terrible about it already, but with that lightning as close as it is..." Another shake. "...better I don't risk headin' back to the wreck."

\-- A flicker-flash in Mia's system. Stunning brightness. Free of sound or temperature.

Mr. Baker looked back up at her. Put on sad eyes; took a breath out shaped into a sigh by the curve of a frown and nodded. "Yeah, I know -- don't worry, I know..."

Mia's brow knit for a moment. Her eyes flicked down, looking for something she could not see, and then she made sense of the face she was making; she bit her teeth together and shut her mouth before keeping her attention on studying the old man again.

"I've already put out a call... Seems all I can do - 'n I'll be prayin' they can send folks out here safely in a timely enough manner. I'll keep doin' my part... try to head out there in the morning, if it's cleared up some by then. Be takin' my boy with me, so's we got an extra set o' eyes..."

...He was telling her something, but not enough. Her focus phased off of him - to a spot just for her, right in front of her nose. She began to squint - _what. What. Think, think._

"Thought, ah... you deserved to know. I know you said you had no... _family_ or nothin', riding with you, but nonetheless." The old man stopped where he stood. Face firm yet solemn. He nodded minutely to himself - approving something. "Thank God we were able to find you before it got this bad..."

"Did you see _anyone else?_ " she finally said, eyes rounding as she found what she wanted. Like everything else she'd said, it came out slightly wrong. It was just too-loud and harsh-edged, with the force and momentum of drawing that question forth.

Mr. Baker, however, answered without missing a beat - by contrast, softly; smoked-out goose down pouring from a battered and leathery old pillow. "Not a soul, ma'am. Suppose I didn't get far enough. I apologize."

The answer, somehow, didn't compute.

She blinked again, as if at the sudden flicker of a faulty bulb.

She rested back in the chair. Her fist slowly, slowly squeezed.

The paper subtly crackled.

In a faint blur, she perceived Mr. Baker taking a step toward her - raising and extending a hand. "Now -- Miss Winters, if there's _anything_ you need..."

"No," she said.

Also wrong. Too high, too fast, too automatic, as her muscles stretched and seized. She saw the old man's eyebrows shoot up and mouth drop open; wincing at herself, she forced a smile, stretching it broad, giving no regard for the wince betrayed by the furrow in her brow. Leaned forward, a bit, to sell it.

She crinkled the paper harder.

"I -- ...don't worry about me..." Almost sounding normal now. More variance. She'd been able to tremble something into that she'd meant as an apologetic laugh. For a moment, her face reset. She sealed her lips. Swallowed. Pulled the smile back on. "...I... know you're doing everything you can. I'm just... _wondering..._ about the others."

That wasn't a complete thought.

She still held _I know I can't be the only survivor_ at the tip of the front of her brain; it trembled and rumbled there.

Mr. Baker nodded. "Naturally, ma'am. If you're sure..."

"I'm _sure._ "

Wrong again. Her inflection had been too close to his; not enough like a response. She'd even barely begun to shape the sure the way he did. _Shoah_.

When he took a step back, looked down at her where she stiffly occupied the chair with his head just-tipped and his lips thinned and his brow hard, she suddenly felt her nerves stand on end, acute enough to pierce - the blue notes in the lighting, too, were sharper, exposing more, and more coldly. Another injection of adrenaline abraded her system.

It was a feeling as if she was in some old spy movie, she realized - being stared down for questioning. She couldn't up and run, right now, and so it was as good as being tied to the chair.

In an echo, accordingly, that reverberated every time her heart beat, she realized that she was worried she had exposed herself many times over.

But Mr. Baker simply nodded once again - giving himself permission to put forth an additional thought.

His hand came up again; he turned it toward himself in a beckon. "I recommend you join us for dinner." One soft blow of a laugh before his face warmed. "My Marguerite sure knows how to cook up a supper that heats a body up from the inside on a rough night like this... that and I don't suppose a little company ever hurt nobody, at times like this... Mind you, our children ain't the chatty kinds - you know how it is with ones their age nowadays - but they're smarter than whips, if nothing else..."

Mia's thoughts had all but stilled.

Begun to turn, slow. Just as her head turned, slow, over to the window.

Into the dark murk-green and blues. Shifted as if through a filter on film through the rain. A sudden flash of lightning, adding sharp white lines that slowly faded. In those lines, she searched for a small human shape.

"...and my Zoe's a sweetheart - hah... sure got it from her mother..."

"I," she said at first. Another miscalculation. Whipped her face to look at the old man again. He rested his weight back a degree; his brow faintly lifted.

She swallowed. Nodded.

Even nodding made her chest ache. If she was a spy, then accepting the invitation would be infiltration. Violation of sanctity.

It was the last thing that needed to happen.

It was with the vibration of something almost frantic that she stirred up a gentle laugh, trailed the last of it out sighing through teeth which showed again.

"I-I would appreciate that, actually," she said. Almost coming out correct. She didn't nod this time, but she bowed, without lowering her face. "...Thank you very much."

At the very end, it fell flat. Like her laugh had done, it had tugged through her teeth.

Infiltration on her part was a trade-off for the alternative.

She would not leave any more unaccounted for. There were many places for a little girl to hide in a swamp.

Fewer places for them to shelter from the rain.

She had far too many more windows to keep vigil in.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the r/FanFiction April Daily Prompt challenge. April 3rd: "It Is, In Fact, A Dark And Stormy Night".


End file.
